Maher says USA Democracy is in its death bed. How concerned are you?

Disclaimer: *I disagree with Bill Maher about many things.

His cliche “dunking” on Millennials, his over-reaction to “cancel” culture (aka consequences for one’s actions), his views on vaccines, his simplistic way of ranking religions, his stupid views on vaccines pre-covid, his platforming of turds, his embrace of many right wing harmful tropes, lack of empathy of some unprivileged groups, etc. I think he’s, more often than not, an overly self-indulgent ass.

Nevertheless, he has occasionally penned some good “new rules” monologues and he has predicted Trump not conceding and attempting a coup before. Now this is what he has to say:

Here is a slightly abridged transcript if you want to save some time:

"The January 6th hearings it turns out changed nobody’s mind. Democrat Jamie Raskin said the hearings would tell a story that will really blow the roof off the house. The committee did a masterful job laying out the case but we live in partisan America now so it’s a little like doing stand up when half the crowd only speaks Mandarin. No matter how good the material is it’s not going to go over. After all the hearings the percentage of Americans who thought Trump did nothing wrong went up three points. That’s America now.

Ben Franklin said our country was a republic if you can keep it… well we can’t. and unless a miracle happens on Tuesday democracy is on the ballot and unfortunately it’s going to lose and once it’s gone it’s gone. Republicans will take control of Congress and next year they’ll begin impeaching Biden and never stop they’ll impeach him for getting out of Afghanistan and getting into Ukraine for inflation for recession for falling off his bike it won’t matter and it won’t make sense but Biden will be a crippled duck when he goes up against Trump in 2024. Even if Trump loses it doesn’t matter. On inauguration day 2025 he’s going to show up whether he’s on the list or not and this time he’s not going to take no for an answer because this time he will have behind him the army of election deniers that is being elected in four days.

There are almost 300 candidates on the ballot this year who don’t believe in ballots and they’ll be the ones writing the rules and monitoring how votes are counted in 24. the facts the policies the behavior don’t matter anymore Trump could be filmed throwing a baby off a bridge and still win. This really is the Crossing the Rubicon moment when the election deniers are elected which is often how countries slide into authoritarianism. Not with tanks in the streets but by electing the people who then have no intention of ever giving it back.

The Republican up for Wisconsin’s governor just said if he’s elected “Republicans will never lose another election”. this is how it happens. Hitler was elected, so was Mussolini, Putin, erdogan, Victor Orban…This is the it can’t happen to us moment that’s happening to us right now. We just don’t feel it yet. We’re the Titanic right after the iceberg hit and honestly too many Americans just don’t care and won’t even care after it happens because they never followed politics to begin with and were never taught in school what democratic government was supposed to look like so how sad can they be about losing something they never knew they had.

You can try and tell them that we will no longer have a system of checks and balances but they will have an answer for that: What’s checks and balances? Democracy is hard. Athens didn’t have to deal with Fox News or the smartphone that made everybody stupid and they only lasted 200 years so 246 years doesn’t look that bad but before we do go I’d like to say a little farewell to some of the things that really did make America great that now we’re going to lose forever like:

  • The peaceful transfer of power: the jewel in our crown. That thing that so many other nations couldn’t pull off that we always did… oh well!***

  • the Bill of Right: when there is no accountability at The Ballot Box there are no actual rights. Look generalisimo Trump is not going t obring back child labor or end Social Security or re-segregate the water fountains. He doesn’t hate Jews. Ivanka is a Jew and he loves her. Now that she’s 40, only as a friend but still. Make no mistake it will be an entirely different way of life for many because our elections will just be for show like in China and Russia and all theother places Trump says are very strong.***

  • Free speech: Well he’s a man who’s always taken criticism well but I wouldn’t count on that one lasting.

  • I wouldn’t count on freedom of religion lasting. Q Anon and the other shocktroops of the Trump takeover of the Republican Party are all quasi-religious entities who want a Christian government.

  • The rule of law. That one was a real Jewel. Maybe our finest Hour As Americans was after World War II when we gave even the defeated Nazis a fair trial Justice Robert Jackson said that voluntarily submitting our captive defeated enemies to the rule of law was one of the most significant tributes that power had ever paid to reason.

Well power will very soon not be paying any more tributes to Reason. Not In America anyway so yeah I urge you to vote but I’ve always been a realist I’m afraid democracy is like the McRib it’s here now it’ll be around for a little bit longer so enjoy it while you can."

—END OF MONOLOGUE—

I would like to dismiss Maher’s pessimistic assessment but that is what many people in many countries mistakenly did.

“The marketplace of ideas will guarantee a win for democracy” concept seems to only work for an elite few. In the US, conservatives are swimming, partly by choice, in toxic, brain-rotting misinformation.

Internationally, many people of all political stripes will go as far as using social media sources that spread misleading or outright fabricated anecdotal evidence to make life or death decisions (see Covid19 antivax fears).

If I accept this mounting evidence that even ** “highly” literate** masses ** from the richest nations believe lies** crafted to appeal to their media bubbles over unvarnished truths; if I accept polling that 2/3 of Americans don’t trust mainstream media, then serious concern is not unwarranted.

So, to go back to the topic title, How concerned are you?

On one hand I can plainly see that Republicans are more than happy to fuck over democracy to retain power, but on the other hand I don’t give a flying fuck what Bill Maher has to say.

Reports of its demise ignore our history—American democracy has been on its deathbed since the founding.

It depends on how much the OP wants to base this discussion on Maher’s monologue and opinions specifically, as opposed to the general concern about the health of American democracy.

I figure that the Democrats will do their best to look at what’s selling and adjust their pitch accordingly in ‘24, and that the Republicans will — uh, do likewise?

Maher is correct. We got lucky in 2020 that the coup attempt failed. The chances of getting lucky another time are a lot lower.

Very concerned.

Sums up my feelings to a T.

What if you read the OP and didn’t know who said it?


Sadly, I agree.

It was not a coup. It was not an insurrection. It was just a damned riot.

Republicans win an election. Liberals claim that the fascists will never allow another election.
Democrats win an election. Conservatives claim that the communists will never allow another election.

They are both a bunch of hysterical drama queens.

Somewhat concerned.

Sure, the Republicans are keen to destroy democracy, as he says, but in the end, Democratic voters still outnumber them. The Democrats can still win this one.

Alas, that requires every Democrat actually getting out and voting, which seems to be the killer. Far too many people just don’t seem to bother.

And that’s what’s really going to kill democracy.

One thing that occurs to me that puts an uncertain twist on this issue: unlike in China or Russia, to use the examples in the monologue, the American forces behind stuff like 1/6 are increasingly fanatic true believers. I’m not sure they know how to put on the veneer of legitimacy; I can easily see them jump straight into Myanmar territory, which would change public and international reaction quite drastically where the one of the world’s biggest economies is at stake. That’s why I’ve been uncertain about the role big money will play in all this: because I’m not convinced they want Myanmar, where I’m convinced that many of the fascist Republicans vying for or in power almost certainly do.

Thanks, Murdoch.

Only people who haven’t been paying attention to what has been happening for the last two years would buy this both-sides bullcrap. Sadly, too many people aren’t paying attention.

Sadly too many people are delusional.

The people who are delusional choose self delusion. The real problem is that there are people who aren’t going to vote at all, at least in part because of the both-sides bullcrap we have already seen in this thread.

The Republicans have always told us exactly what they intended to do. Many people have chosen not to believe them for whatever reason.

A good point. I dare say the single largest political group in this country is the “IDGAF” party. As it is in many others. The whole cause of democracy itself, to that plurality, is barely a formality. The important thing to them is food on the table, a roof over your head, some coin in pocket and protection from scary outsiders. Government doesn’t give that to me? Then what do I care who runs it.

Around the world I see not so much a matter of death of “democracy” but about the ascendance of a preference for a populist, illiberal “democracy” – where you just pander to the base wants of the rabble to gain power, and you don’t have an outright war but the mob that is most intimidating in the mob-off wins and that is somehow the fair result.

The old-school authoritarians at both ends of the spectrum, fascists and communists, always derided pluralistic liberal democracy as inherently bourgeois and corrupt and phony, something that is no big loss if replaced by “real” democracy, the government of, by and for the people… the people who have the True and Righteous values and thoughts, that is.

Democracy is in the ICU, but I don’t think its in hospice just yet. I firmly believe that the only people who actually want there to be a dictatorship are Trump and his immediate acolytes, a group that include, people like Gaetz, MTG and Boebert, but not McConnell or even DeSantis. The majority realize that the reality of king Trump would be a disaster for everyone themselves included. While they are willing to go along with Trump’s claims that the election was stolen, but that is just to keep their base scared and angry, and most importantly keeping that anger directed away from them. They want a Democracy but they want one with their thumbs on the scale strict Gerrymandering, voter suppression shaving off a few percent on the side, allowing them to with with 43-45% popular support. This is bad, but its nothing we haven’t seen as a country before, certainly not as bad as we saw under Jim Crow.

As far as how things go for the next 2-6 years, Maher is right that the Republicans will waste no time impeaching Biden on bogus chargers, but I think they are wrong that this will leave Biden wounded. If Trump survived two impeachments on solid grounds with barely a scratch, Biden can survive the same on no grounds. The Republican base really can’t get any more fired up than they already are, and the rest of the country will realize its just tit for tat. So as usual 2024 will all come down to whether the economy with the help of the fed and international events can thread the needle of dampening inflation while keeping the economy from slipping into recession. As far as a blatant steal of the election goes, the courts showed no interest in what the election deniers had to say the first time around, and its still the same court, or perhaps even a bit more liberal after Biden’s turn at nominating justices. So there is no reason to believe that they will be any more sympathetic this time around.

If not then the question is whether its Trump or DeSantis who is the Republican nominee (see other thread). If its DeSantis then we slip into Democracy lite as described above. its bad news for all progressive ideals for a few election cycles but its recoverable. If Trump wins, then it becomes a battle between him and McConnell for the soul of the Republican party and the nation as a whole. Does Trump have enough sway to push through court picks and cabinet posts base purely on loyalty to him regardless of ability, or will McConnell be able to rein him in by not rubber stamping the next Harriet Miers.

I would be concerned if it weren’t the 5,000th time someone like Maher has been saying stuff like this.

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